With no championship in sight, Amare Stoudemire's on-court frustration boils over

Associated Press photosThe playoffs haven't been kind to Amare Stoudemire during his New York tenure. The forward was felled by a back injury against the Celtics last year, left, and last night, he punched a glass case around a fire extinguisher, a blunder that may cost him the rest of the series against the Heat.

Last night, after his New York Knicks fell behind the Miami Heat, 2-0, in their first-round playoff series, Amare Stoudemire put his hand through the glass of an enclosed fire extinguisher. The extinguisher won the bout—Stoudemire left American Airlines Arena with his left arm in a sling, having suffered lacerations on his hand that will jeopardize his availability for the already reeling Knicks.

Stoudemire did not speak to the media after the game—apparently busy getting treated by paramedics—but he did address the injury on Twitter last night. “I am so mad at myself right now,” Stoudemire tweeted. “I want to apologize to the fans and my team, not proud of my actions, headed home for a new start.”

There has been much outrage in New York in the hours since the extinguisher dust-up—about the selfishness of Stoudemire’s act, about the damage he has done to his team, about how he has cost his Knicks a chance to upset the Heat. That, however, is mostly bunk. No doubt, punching a plate of glass out of frustration is a pointless exercise, but this wasn’t some premeditated act by Stoudemire designed to bring attention to himself. This was, rather, the eighth straight loss of his postseason life, a loss in which, after being blitzed by Miami in Game 1, the Knicks were slowly drubbed into submission in Game 2.

Anyone who can’t see why Stoudemire might be feeling some frustration lately hasn’t been paying attention. Put aside, even, the death of his brother in a car accident in February. For strictly basketball reasons alone, the last few months have brought home a reality that scares the Knicks, the team’s fans and Stoudemire himself, even more than cuts on his hand—Stoudemire just might not be able to do it anymore.

Remember, this is the time of year when Stoudemire first made his name. In his third season in the league, 2004-05, Stoudemire proved himself an NBA star of the highest order, one of the elites. He had a 40-point, 16-rebound effort in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals against Dallas, 37 points with 14 rebounds in Game 3, and 33 and 18 in Game 5. Against the Spurs in the conference finals, the Suns went out in five games, but that series still belonged to the 22-year-old Stoudemire—he averaged 37.0 points, shot 55.0 percent, got to the free-throw line 10.2 times per game and shot 84.3 percent on his foul shots. Heading into the ’05-06 season, on Sporting News’ annual Top 50 list, Stoudemire ranked fifth, just ahead of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

But Stoudemire suffered a knee injury that required microfracture surgery the following year, and though he has since returned to All-Star level, there has always been a sense that the knee would catch up with him. It was, in part, why Phoenix would not give him a long-term contract extension before he left the Suns in 2010, and why his Knicks contract is uninsured. It’s also pretty clearly why Stoudemire has never regained the form that made him look like a future Hall of Famer and MVP in the '05 playoffs.

And then this year happened. Stoudemire was one of many NBA stars who came out of the gates slowly following the lockout, but unlike other star players, he never raised his level. He averaged 17.5 points, his lowest output in since his rookie year, other than the '05-06 season in which he played just three games He shot 48.3 percent, lowest since his second season. His explosiveness had been on the decline in recent years, but this year, it just didn’t seem to be there at all. In March, Mike D’Antoni, the coach whose system helped make Stoudemire a star in those early years in Phoenix, was fired—Stoudemire could not carry the load in D’Antoni’s offense anymore, and the team needed a system that better emphasized small forward Carmelo Anthony.

The Knicks, according the NBA’s advanced stats site, were a better team without Stoudemire on the floor. In fact, Stoudemire was one of only four Knicks regulars (Mike Bibby, Bill Walker and Toney Douglas were the others) who rated negatively in “Net Rating,” a measure of the team’s scoring margin per 100 possessions. Stoudemire was -2.7, worst on the team.

He opened the playoffs in Game 1 against the Heat with nine points on 2-for-7 shooting, and though he was better on Monday (18 points, 6-for-9 shooting), the frustration of still not having won a playoff game with the Knicks—he was to be this franchise’s savior when he signed in '10, after all—had to be building for Stoudemire.

“It is playoff basketball,” NBA TV analyst Brent Barry said. “We are seeing the frustration on the court with the coaches, you see it with players and officials. You have got to be able to control that part of the game and it is very difficult to do. You want your players to be invested, you want them to be all in.”

Stoudemire is all in, maybe a little too much. That doesn’t necessarily excuse Stoudemire for doing something he should not have done.

He should have curbed his emotions. But what has happened to Stoudemire’s game in the last few months does, at least, make his outburst more understandable. He wants badly to be the player he was in ’05, he wants to be the marquee guy the Knicks thought they were getting in ’10. He has been neither—in fact, his team has been better with him not on the floor, and with or without him, the Knicks probably have no chance against Miami.

Stoudemire is only 29, but his game is in decline. The playoffs, once his springboard to fame and fortune, are now crystallizing that reality, and there has to be some part of Stoudemire that knows it. He was once considered a star ahead of Miami leaders James and Wade. Now, as those guys run circles around Stoudemire and his team, it should be no surprise there was a well of frustration gathering. He shouldn’t have taken it out on a fire extinguisher. But it’s easy to see why he did.